City cultural services staff on May 13 told the Wichita City Council they are one year into a five-year Cultural Arts Strategic Plan and have established baseline data, expanded grant participation and documented economic impact — while warning that unstable public funding and a shortage of affordable performance and rehearsal space remain pressing constraints.

Lindsay, a cultural services presenter, said the division’s “mission is to ensure everyone has equitable access to cultural arts opportunities by activating and strengthening the creative potential of our community.” That mission framed the update on goals including access, facility needs, engagement with underserved populations, creation of new work and partnership development.

Jesse Cozza, division of arts and cultural services, said the department overhauled its grant application process and increased outreach, producing a sharp rise in applications: “We were able to increase that to about 26 applications in ’24, and now we’re up to 39 applications in 2025,” he said. Cozza told the council the city received a $75,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts that is being distributed as three $25,000 Arts Thrive awards.

Staff said 38 organizations received city funding in 2024 and that 13 of those provided ZIP-code-level participation data used to set baselines. Based on reporting from funded organizations, staff reported roughly 1.4 million total attendances in 2024, about 100,000 school-age children served, roughly 150,000 interactions with underserved audience members, and an estimated economic impact of $102,000,000 tied to about $5,000,000 in city grant support. The report also cited 1,400 local jobs supported and approximately 1,300 paid opportunities for local artists in the reporting cohort.

On public art, staff said the city issued nine RFQs in 2024 and received 536 applications. Of the public-art commissions paid last year, 58% were awarded to Wichita-area artists; staff said roughly $678,000 of about $1,000,000 in public-art spending went to local artists. The division also reported it has six works currently in restoration and that the city is using 10% of the percent-for-art fund for maintenance for the first time.

Staff identified several areas for improvement: the stability of public funding at state and federal levels, growing demand for grants without a matching expansion of the funding pool, and a persistent shortage of affordable performance and rehearsal spaces and studio space. The Kansas Arts Commission and national-level funding shifts were cited as sources of uncertainty for local organizations.

The division said it will require more consistent funding to expand grant award sizes and meet growing demand. Staff also described ongoing work to develop a “public artist toolkit” to help local artists compete in national selection processes and to include ZIP-code tracking in future grant contracts to measure geographic equity.

The 2026 cultural funding program will be tiered into three levels (cultural partner, cultural anchor and cultural institution) with initial placement based on an organization’s age and history of city funding; movement between tiers will be possible based on performance measures, staff said. Staff also said grant applications for the next cycle open May 9 and close Aug. 4.

Council members thanked staff for the outreach and for collecting stories and metrics that illustrate cultural programs’ local economic impacts. No formal council action on the strategic plan was recorded during the update; the presentation was an annual status report and discussion.